It Takes A Village – Or A Village Prosecutor

This is nuts. A 14 year old Marion County Iowa girl (Nancy Doe) is being prosecuted for sexual exploitation for texting two sexy pictures of a minor (herself) to a boy at her school.

The boy, as boys will do, shared the pics with at least one other friend. They were caught printing the pictures out on a printer at school. The police were notified. They launched a wide spread investigation. At its conclusion, the local prosecutor, Bull, held a meeting with the kids and parents involved and set terms to avoid prosecution.

Bull gave the teens an option to avoid charges: they had to enroll in a pre-trial diversion program involving community service, classes on the dangers of sexting, no phone or laptop for set period of time, and an admission of guilt. If they did all these things, they would not be prosecuted.

Unfortunately for the Prosecutor, to support a sexual exploitation charge Iowa Law requires images of a sexual act. The photos in question do not do so. One photo shows the girl wearing boy shorts and a sports bra. In the other, the bra is gone but her hair fully covers her breasts.

The girls parents refused Bull’s terms. And her prosecution is going forward.

The article’s author (from Redstate) does not think much of this situation, believing the prosecutor way out of bounds.

The lawsuit is the result of a bullying and overbearing pissant prosecutor trying to make a name for himself by showing a bunch of middle school students how tough he can talk. He was under no obligation to take “every juvenile to court,” only those who broke the law. And all parties agree that the pictures were no more pornographic that your typical “American Apparel” ad. What the Ed Bull character is doing is retaliating against Doe’s parents because they decided that they, not Bull, were the parents and they, not Bull, would mete out discipline as they saw fit. You see, petty bureaucrats like Bull can’t tolerate the disrespect and contempt they’ve worked damned hard to merit.

I agree with this assessment with the exception that I would include the school in the mix as doing pretty much the wrong thing from the git go. There was, in my estimation, absolutely no reason to bring the police into this matter. So I’d add the school Principal to the list of pissants.

I have little doubt that this girl’s parents have punished her. I know I would. But whatever her parents have done to hold her accountable pales in comparison to what has happened at the hands of the police and this prosecutor. I do hope that a Judge will throw out these charges as unsupported in the law, or that a jury will see the absurdity of putting a 14 year old girl on trial for such nonsense and that Bull’s BS will fail.